Book Review | The ERAS Tour Book

Rating | All the stars forever and ever and ever

Eleanor and I were lucky enough to attend The ERAS Tour twice - in June of 2023 (Minneapolis N1) and November of 2024 (Indianapolis N2). It was pure magic and I miss it so much. I miss making and trading friendship bracelets, I miss watching grainey and laggy TikTok livestreams "with" my cousin as we shout at each other via text, I miss eagerly awaiting the surprise songs, I even miss the post-concert come-down and exhaustion.

TikTok is full of Taylor fans lamenting the fact that it has been MONTHS since anyone asked us if we know the lyrics to this bridge (Cruel Summer), if we're ready to go back to high school (Fearless set), if we have ten minutes to spare (All Too Well Taylor's Version Ten-Minute Version From the Vault), or if we have one more song to give (Karma, the very last song of the three hour and 15 minute show).

This book was the perfect way to relive all of it.

Captured within these 250+ pages are personal reflections written by Taylor, hundreds of photos from every Era, plus rehearsal photos, design and costume sketches, costume/instrument/equipment photos, and so much more.

Like it or not, Barbara Walters was not lying in 2014 when she said, "Taylor Swift IS the music industry." That was eleven years ago when 1989 came out and Taylor is bigger than ever. 1989 marked Taylor's complete genre-shift that went from country to pop-country to full-on pop. The album is one of the greatest pure synth pop albums of all time, and what's crazy is that it's not even Taylor's best album. There is no one who comes even close to doing what she does.

I was late to the party, not going to lie. I bought Fearless back in 2008, but was not a Swiftie by any means. For a while there she even annoyed me, and I don't have a particularly good reason why. But Eleanor was hooked and she begged me for MONTHS to listen to Taylor. I refused, despite having liked 1989 when it came out, but not really listening to anything else by her in those following years. But seeing how sad my girl was when the tour sold out so fast was hard.

So, we went through it all to get tickets. The shows had long-since sold out when I came to the realization that Taylor's music is fantastic, so StubHub was the next stop. I snagged what I thought were pricey tickets at the time ($450 a piece and worth every penny) and off we went to Minneapolis Night 1.

THEN TayTay announced MORE US dates. My cousin and I both tried for presale, because why not? We wouldn't go if we didn't get presale, because resale tickets would be astronomical this time around. (Resale tickets in our section at the top level were going for $2500. We paid $140 for face value. Don't ever let anyone tell you that it was Taylor who made the tickets so expensive). 

Neither of us expected to get a code, but I did. So in August of 2023, sitting in a first-teacher-day of the school year meeting, my phone was clutched tightly in my hand as I watched the minutes tick by until the sale began. My friends couldn't stop laughing at me as my knee bounced nervously, watching me continue to look back and forth from my phone, to the principal, to the clock on the wall, over and over. With minutes to spare we were released for lunch and I bolted outside as fast as I could to make sure that the cement walls of our building would not be the reason my connection lagged or kicked me out of the queue.

But I did it, I got the tickets, and off we went to Indianapolis fourteen months later.

My mom drove my cousin from Minnesota, and I spent mannnnny hours in the car with two eleven year olds. Eleanor's BFF had never been to a concert EVER, and I loved being part of that experience for her. Back when the Eras Tour movie was released, we'd gone a couple times to the drive-in to see it. The first time we did, Eleanor's BFF looked at me with wide eyes during the opening set of Lover and asked, "This is what we're going to see???" Magical is the only way to describe it.

Highly, highly recommended for the Swiftie in your life.